March 21, 2011

Announcement by State Senator Toni Boucher

Dear Dagny,

It's my pleasure to pass on some good news. New M-8 rail cars have been added to Metro North's New Haven Line in CT. In case you missed it here are the latest details from the  CT Department of Transportation.

"A second eight-car set of M-8 rail cars was put into service Friday, March 18, 2011, on the New Haven Line, bringing to 16 the number of new rail cars serving the commuter corridor between New Haven and New York City – the busiest in North America. The first set of eight cars began service on March 1.

The M-8 cars are the first of some 380 being ordered by the State of Connecticut from Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. of Japan.

Beginning Monday (March 21), passengers will be able to ride M-8 trains from New Haven, CT to New York at 5:40 a.m. and 6:24 a.m., and from New York to New Haven at 6:29 p.m. and 9:37 p.m. Other, shorter M-8 runs to and from various stations on the New Haven Line will also occur during the day.

Another 10 M-8s are now being tested at the New Haven Rail Yard and should be deployed in May. Once production fully ramps up, cars will be delivered to Connecticut at the rate of 10 a month from a plant in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The initial 300-car order was placed with Kawasaki in August 2006, at a cost of $761 million, shared 65 percent by the State of Connecticut and 35 percent paid by New York State’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The contract contained two options for additional – one for 42 cars at $90 million and one for 38 more at $81 million. The average price per car is $2.23 million.

The cars are in “married” sets of two, with each set containing a total of 212 seats."